On Amber's birthday, which was also Laci's due date, Scott sent Amber on a romantic treasure hunt.
February 10, 2003, "was a kind of a hectic day," Amber recalls. "I had to work that day [and] a good friend of mine was throwing me a birthday party. That way I was in the comfort of a home with friends and not out and knowing this was a very emotional day for so many people.
"I went to the spot that he had led me to find this—he had a package for me there for my birthday ...There was a container with butterfly wildflower mix, which was significant for me—I have a thing for wildflowers and butterflies...And there was a box, a silver box with an amber necklace...A CD of Norah Jones, Come Away With Me. A little card or a little note that he had written something on."
After his arrest, Scott wrote to Amber from jail. In what she calls a "very self-serving" letter, he wrote, "I'm searching for a way to do service within these walls. I hope for the preliminary trial to occur so that the case will be dismissed. May 4 is Laci's birthday and I'm asking close friends to fly a kite in her memory. She and Conner should not have been taken from this earth as they were. My prayers are always that you and the little one [Amber's daughter] are happy."
Before Scott was arrested, Amber sent to a few people a Christmas card that included a photo of her and Scott.
Oprah: Had you sent that Christmas card out?
Amber: A few...and I had to retrieve them.
Oprah: How did you do that?
Amber: I said, "I'm sorry, I can't explain and things will make sense at one point." The one person in particular that I'm speaking of that I had to [ask for the card back] didn't ask any questions; [she] knew something was not right, and that was it. She didn't make a big deal about it.
Gloria Allred, Amber's attorney and a famed advocate of women and women's rights, thinks that Amber's tapes and testimony turned the trial around.
"Watching the trial and being in the courtroom...[it] felt like a ship going into an iceberg," she says. "The prosecution's case appeared to be weak. I had confidence in it, but a lot of people thought it was weak. But then when Amber testified, when those tape recordings were played, when the jurors realized that he was calling Amber talking about the Eiffel Tower, being in Paris, from the vigil for his missing wife where people were praying for her and searching for her; it seemed that that ship was turned around.
"It changed the climate in the courtroom. And I think people saw Scott for what he was: a real liar. A person who had a cold heart toward his missing wife, Laci, and who appeared to be obsessed with having a relationship with Amber."
Jurors in the Scott Peterson trial had much to say about Amber's impact on the case. Juror Greg Beratlis says he thought that Scott was innocent, but that Amber's testimony helped convince him otherwise.
"The very first time we met Scott Peterson was when we were still being selected as jurors and he stood up and turned to the gallery and he kind of waved and smiled at everybody," Greg says. "He was very endearing to everybody."
But as the trial got underway, Greg began to see a different man.
"Before listening to the tapes of Scott and Amber, all I saw was a man who went fishing," Greg says. "But when you start listening to the tapes, you start realizing there was another side of Scott Peterson. This other side that nobody had seen."
Greg also noted Scott's response when the prosecution showed the horrific photos of Laci and Conner's bodies.
"When the photos were put up on the screen for everybody in the courtroom to see, I looked over at Scott a couple times to see his reaction," Greg says. "He stared for moments and then he would look away. No reaction."
Oprah: You tried many times to try to get Scott to tell you what happened, did you not?
Amber: Some days a little lighter. Maybe not as aggressive. Or kind of somewhat casually trying to get information out of him and because I couldn't always constantly be ...invading, because I still wanted to be able to somehow keep my foot in the door with conversation flow.
Oprah: Just trying to keep a connection to him.
Amber: Yeah, because nobody else did.
Oprah: There's a section in your book where you talk about being the voice of Laci. Do you feel that?
Amber: From the beginning I always felt in my heart—I don't know if you'd say compassion or just this drive—that this is something I had to do for her. And if the role was reversed, I'd only hope and pray she would do the same thing for me.
